This invention relates to the manufacture of a consolidated web. More particularly the present invention relates to the manufacture of a consolidated web by impregnating a web with a heat sensitive latex and heating the impregnated web to gel the latex. The resulting webs are useful in a number of applications including the manufacture of synthetic leather and relatively strong sheet material.
It is known to manufacture consolidated sheet material by impregnating a non woven web with a compound of a latex. The compound is gelled and then the consolidated web is dried and cured. Representative of such art are British Pat. No. 1,520,827 published Aug. 9, 1978 in the name of the B. F. Goodrich Company; Canadian Pat. No. 668,788 issued Aug. 20, 1963 to Farbenfabriken Bayer A.G. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,198 issued Mar. 6, 1979 to Bayer A.G. These patents are restricted to the impregnation of a fibrous web with a latex compound which contains a curing agent. The compound does not contain any filler. For the manufacture of impregnated webs these drawbacks are undesirable as they require the compounding of a vulcanizing agent and at best an extremely limited use of filler. Synthetic leather prepared with latices which are currently available suffer a decrease in abrasion resistance with increasing filler levels. The present invention seeks to overcome these limitations. The latices of the present invention are self curing and accept from about 40 to 100, preferably from 50 to 70 parts by weight of a filler without a significant reduction in properties, even in the absence of cure paste.